


Déjà Rêvé

by The_Silent_Writer



Series: Dream [1]
Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Dreaming, Fate, Johnlock - Freeform, M/M, Sherohn, Slight Alternative Reality
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-02-06
Updated: 2014-02-17
Packaged: 2018-01-11 08:23:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,182
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1170843
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Silent_Writer/pseuds/The_Silent_Writer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John had been dreaming, but why did the whole experience feel so real? Why was this man he knew nothing about so important to him?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

“John?”

The man looked around for the source of the voice. Nothing. How did it know his name? And where was he? He tried to take in his surroundings. Everything seemed so familiar, yet so different.

“John.” The voice called him again. It’s baritone pitch wrapped around John’s mind like a sugar-coated melody. This voice, he didn’t know it. No face matched up with the files of faces in his memory. John knew this to be a fact, but why, then, did this soothing voice sound, no, _feel_ so familiar?

“Sh...” He tried to reply, but the name that he so desperately wished he knew was caught on his tongue. He began thinking up names that could start with a ‘sh’.  Shaye, no, the name felt longer. Sean, too ordinary. Shanon, too feminine. No, it was nothing he had ever heard before. It was like his mind had created a new word. Surely, the name was locked somewhere in—

 _Ah…_ John thought. Not ‘sure’, the adverb. ‘Sher’, the prefix. What names began with ‘Sher’? Sheridan, not the right country. Sherwood, again, far too boring. He racked his brain for a solution that was nowhere in sight.

“Think, John.  _Really_ think.”

He was trying. God, was he trying. He could find nothing in the jumbled mess that was his mind. His thoughts began to stray. John figured his thoughts had the right idea. If you distract your mind with something else, the answer will typically come to you in a flurry of ‘Aha!’ and ‘Eureka!’

He nodded to himself in conformation. Forget the name, names are nothing. The important topic at hand was where was John? He spun around, slowly taking in his surroundings. Long, paved streets as far as the eye could see. Oh look, a double-decker bus passed by! And in the distance, was that not a famous clock tower he spied?  _London_. He was home, wasn’t he? If so, then why did nothing really look familiar? Why did nothing feel real?

John blinked and was now standing on an entirely different street. His eyes took in everything, amazed at what had happened. Where was he now? The road from before he could have sworn was close to Downing Street. But this new road was an utterly new experience. Every building that lined the long road seemed to have a modernized antiquity to them. There was a small restaurant along the way. Its title a word he couldn’t quite make out, but he swore it seemed synonymous with acceleration.

Next door to the humble eatery was a flat-complex. The mere sight of it sent John’s mind spinning. He  _knew_ this place, but how? Goddammit,  _how_? Each step he took towards the building gave him an even greater sense of nostalgia. There were numbers on the black-painted door. Out of three digits only the number ‘2’ was legible. Frustration formed in the pit of his stomach when he couldn’t make out the other numbers. There were over three-hundred possible combinations it could be.

A sense of hopelessness draped over him. If this location was real, it would be almost impossible to find it.  _Why am I hoping it’s real?_ John wondered. This place should mean nothing to him. But it did,  _why_?

“Yes, John. Why?”

“No! Shut up—shut it!” John screamed, grabbing tufts of his short, sandy-blonde hair. He doubled over, falling into a heap on the pavement. He sobbed into the cold, London air but no tears came. Everything around him felt so real, but he knew it had to be fabricated. He was losing his mind in this new, yet so familiar world.

 “Tell me, John. What is it like in that funny little head of yours?”

That voice was breaking him, he knew that. But a part of him wanted to hear it again. Its tone was like honey to the ears. Nothing could compare to its brilliance. “Please…” John begged. He raised his face towards the sky as if trying to talk to God himself. “Who are you?” Now, a tear finally appeared in the corner of his right eye. He couldn’t take much more of this agony.

“How dull…”

John’s muscles tensed. It was that voice again, but different. It felt physically present unlike the omnipresence it had before. It was real and it was coming from behind him.

He quickly turned from his place on the ground, not wanting to miss the chance to see the owner of the mysterious voice.  _Oh my…_ he thought as he scanned the personage of the man in front of him.

Elegant couldn’t even begin to describe what John saw in the man. Tall might be a good place to start. Much taller than John. He realized as he stood, his legs trembling as he did so. He cursed to himself as he tried to make sense of the man’s blurry features. Hair, black and curly, was practically the only other characteristic he could make out. The man’s clothes were fairly simple; dark-blue trousers, a shirt, deep violet with reddish hues in colour, and what looked to be a long, black overcoat.

No, he did not know this man of blurred lines and swirls and colours. But yes, he swore it felt like he did. John’s eyes were in constant motion, trying to analyze the situation, his whereabouts, and the man facing him.

“Have you figured it out yet, Doctor Watson?”

 _Ah…_ His eyes widened in a moment of clarity. Features began to reveal themselves on the man’s face. Sharp cheekbones hovered over thin lips. Almond-shaped eyes came into view, their bluish-gray visage pierced John with a sharp gaze.

Though every fiber in John screamed familiar, he did not know this man. They had never talked, never passed by, never met. His eyes continued to search the man over and over in hopes of finding whatever piece of the puzzle he was missing.

The clock tower tolled, its loud ring echoing across the city, inside of John’s head. Another moment of clarity. The man’s name was on the tip of his tongue. Another toll of the bells that shook John to his core.

“Goodbye… John.” The man said, melancholy seeping onto his previously expressionless face.

“No! Sherlo--!”

 

John sat up quickly, gasping for breath. His eyes shot around the small room, desperately trying to grab onto reality. The buzzing of an alarm clock screeched at him, forcing him into lucidity and to begin his day. He slapped the ‘off’ button, sighing. He was where he was supposed to be: in bed, in his too small, over-priced flat.

He closed his eyes, trying to recall the already fading memory of the man from his dream. The name had already left him. John wondered if he had actually known the name, or if his mind was just leading him on.

Either way, 5 a.m. and a long shift at St. Bartholomew’s was just around the corner. John set to getting ready for the day, knowing full well that thoughts of his mystery man would be clawing at him from the back of his mind.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which John finds something of length in the store room.

The clock in his office had stopped.

Or he had stopped.

Both maybe?

Time had to be standing still, that much John was sure of. Was it because of the lack of patients? Was it the boredom of nothing to do? Or maybe, was it because of that mindfuck of a dream he had had last night?

There was no telling at this point.

His office door opening made the clock start to tick again. Life was finally continuing. 

Mary, one of the chief nurses, made her way in. From their short encounters in between patients, John believed she was a nice woman. She was shorter than him, at least. He liked that, made him feel good. Wait… Was he forming some sort of height kink? Why would he even be thinking that? Height had never been a component to attractiveness before. Maybe it was the other way around, in terms of height. The taller, the better. Did that even make sense? Since when had he thought someone taller than him was attractive?

“Hellooo? Earth to John?”

“O-Oh, right. Sorry.” How embarrassing. “What can I help you with, Mary?”

“I need to head out early today, could you check the supply inventory before you leave? Make sure the vault it sealed?”

John laughed. She had a way of making him do that. Silly comments that went straight to his funny bone. “Sure, locking up’s no… problem.” Uh-oh.

“Thanks I’ll see you later, yeah?”

She dashed off before she could receive a reply. Not that John could have given one. He had said something. Well, of course he did, but why did that something shoot straight through his heart? Why did something feel off? Missing maybe?

The clock stopped ticking again.

 

The shift went by slowly, patients scattered throughout the day helped with John’s downward-spiraling thoughts but there was something at the back of his mind that kept nagging him. Every time someone consented to something or talked of battening down the hatches, a small piece of John went somewhere. He wasn’t sure where his pieces were going, but he knew if he couldn’t get the pieces back together soon, he was going to become a puzzle that could never be solved.

An overheard conversation from the hall, “I was sure my keys were in my purse, but I found them locked in my car!”, nearly had John making his way to the Psychiatric wing of the hospital. How much longer could he endure this madness?

‘Another 4 hours’, said the clock.

 

John read the time on his desktop with great delight. Finally. 6 p.m. Thirteen hours of mind numbing work was over. Time to go home, no, time for a few pints then he could head home. That sounded like a brilliant plan.

Before leaving, as promised, he did an inventory check of the rudimentary medical supplies. Bandages, check. Gauze, yep. Sterilized needles, plenty. Riding crop, sure. 

Wait, what? 

Yep, there it was, plain as day. Directly adjacent to the mountain of needles was a black, leather riding crop.

John looked at it for a second, well, much longer than a second, really. _This—is—a—riding crop_ , he thought, taking the slender baton. His fingers traced its length. It was sleek, cool to the touch. He thought it odd that something so out of place felt at home amongst the supplies. Odd… Very odd.

He had already finished his inventory check and decided that he had spent long enough in a closed room with what was probably, most definitely, used as a sex toy. Setting the crop down, he turned to leave but stopped in his tracks. John sighed, reaching back for the strap of leather and then continuing his way out of the room. He couldn’t just  _leave_ it there, could he? Either Mary or he would get in trouble if something like this was found in the store room. He placed the stick into the inside pocket of his jacket and left, locking the room behind him.

After a quick stop by his office to pick up some documents and drop off his lengthy discovery, John knew it was finally time to leave. Thank God. One more stretch as he locked up his office and he was on his way. How giddy he felt at the moment. Was this normal? After a long shift and an odd encounter in the store room, was it normal to feel this excited? No, probably not, but he was regardless.

He looked down at his hand, the one that had been holding the riding crop. It was warm, fuzzy even, though it wasn’t an unpleasant experience. His hand was longing to hold it again. Pushing back the thoughts of BDSM that sprang forth, he tried to recall if he had ever had such an occurrence before. Maybe, no. Yes, he had. This feeling, longing that traced his palm and caressed his fingers was quite familiar to him. It was the moment when you brushed hands with your high school crush. It was sweet, innocent and God how you wished it could go on forever. It burned your skin in the most pleasurable of ways, so that hours, days, even years after you still remembered how it felt to be connected to that person.

That person… Who was that for John?

Of course he had felt that way before, but this was different. This mark searing onto his palm felt new, unperturbed by the evils of adult life. But there was no one of _significance_ in his life right now. If this was true, then why did palm burn with such intensity?

Despite his wondering and confusion on the matter at hand -- on hand -- John still had a skip in his step. Time for the pub, no! Scratch that! Time to buy a nice bottle of whisky and have the nightcap of his life!

Yes, maybe a nice drink and some sleep was just what he needed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you again for reading. I hope you enjoyed it. 
> 
> I know where I want this to end up, but I'm letting John tell me how he wants to get there... If that makes sense. So, because of this (and time issues), I may not be able to add consistently. I'll try my best to get one up every week and if not, every other week!
> 
> Also, I'm a spastic checker, re-checker, and re-re-checker of my work, so there may be changes to previous chapters. (Keep that in mind!) I'll tell you if I've changed something MAJOR, but I haven't as of late.
> 
> Thank you again! -bows- See you soon.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed it.  
> This is literally my first fanfic... Ever. Well, really bad middle-school Naruto ones don't count. To me, anyways.  
> If you don't mind, please tell me what you think of it.
> 
> Déjà Rêvé is a French phrase meaning "already dreamed". It is a sort of Déjà Vu, where instead of being awake and having the feeling of 'oh, I've done this exact thing before', it's when you're dreaming and get the exact same feeling. Or, in my case, being awake and realizing I have already dreamed an exact situation, while acting it out. It's kind of weird. Yeah, very weird... But really cool!
> 
> -bows- Thank you for reading. :)


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